It's the start of the new year! As you're figuring out whether you'll be able to actually stick to your resolutions, you'll have speedruns, music, and Street Fighter III to keep you busy.

The start of the year signals the arrival of Awesome Games Done Quick, the annual speedrunning marathon that runs from this Sunday to next Sunday. There's a lot of old favorites, but also some new games! It's going to be a good time. (Stream / Schedule)

If speedruns aren't your thing, you can hit up MagFest instead, which focuses more on music, though there'll be some number of marathons there as well. (Streams / Schedule)

This has been a pretty good year for the webslinger. Between a critically-acclaimed movie and major comic arc, it could almost feel like the Spider-Man PS4 game is just icing, but Marvel is still behind Insomniac's Spider-Man in a bunch of big and small ways. One of those ways is with an upcoming Spider-Man statue based on the white spider design from the game.

I'm not exactly sure about that pose Spider-Man's got going on. It looks like he's doing a T-pose on a personally-themed tombstone, but Peter Parker's going to do what he wants to do, even if it just happens to look like he's performing the twist.

Ever since Dark Souls became popular on PC, fans have modded it, from fixing the PC port to making enemies so strikingly aggressive that they come looking for you the second they load into the world. A brand new fan mod changes the game dramatically, remixing it in such a way that the PC community is seeing an uptick in activity in FROM Software's older Souls title.

The mod, titled Daughters of Ash, heavily remixes the entire game by moving basically everything around. Pretty much every item, enemy, boss, and event is moved around or reworked for new mechanics. Posted on Reddit, the creator Grimrukh estimates that the mod is the culmination of 1000 hours of work, but it is entirely based on things already in Dark Souls. There are no new enemies or bosses ported from other Dark Souls games here.

For example, players are intimately familiar with dodging the Asylum Demon at the beginning of the game and returning from a floor above where they can plunge attack his face. In Daughters of Ash, Asylum Demon opens the floor upon his first appearance, meaning players are at risk of following down the hole where the incredibly powerful Stray Demon awaits. One fall in the gigantic hole in the center of the arena means instant death.

When Persona 5's Joker was announced as the first DLC character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, fans everywhere were certainly surprised. On stage, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that the Joker announcement sets the tone for the remaining four characters from the five-fighter pack. Since then, Smash Bros. aficionados have gone wild with speculation over who is left, but a new datamine of the game is fueling a lot of speculation.

It took dataminers until recently to break the game open, revealing information important for competitive play like weight and speed values. Including in that information, though, were values for three characters that did not have placement in the base roster.

Ok so since the secret's out, here's confirmation. Params in Ultimate confirm the code names of 2 future characters, "jack" and "brave". The labels for these characters: fighter_kind_jack fighter_kind_brave fighter_kind_packu (piranha plant) pic.twitter.com/rCRRg8KR3W

When Persona 5's Joker was announced as the first DLC character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, fans everywhere were certainly surprised. On stage, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that the Joker announcement sets the tone for the remaining four characters from the five-fighter pack. Since then, Smash Bros. aficionados have gone wild with speculation over who is left, but a new datamine of the game is fueling a lot of speculation.

It took dataminers until recently to break the game open, revealing information important for competitive play like weight and speed values. Including in that information, though, were values for three characters that did not have placement in the base roster.

Ok so since the secret's out, here's confirmation. Params in Ultimate confirm the code names of 2 future characters, "jack" and "brave". The labels for these characters: fighter_kind_jack fighter_kind_brave fighter_kind_packu (piranha plant) pic.twitter.com/rCRRg8KR3W

Update: Streamers such as Poison, who supposedly streamed with Ellie, are now stating that the entire thing was a social experiment created by them. Based on their admissions on-stream, Poison asked a 17-year-old girl to pose as him while he played for an experiment that he has yet to explain. We have reached out to Poison, who has not replied as of time of writing.

Reports on Twitter have suggested that Blizzard is now holding meetings with the team Second Wind. We have reached out to Blizzard as well.

A few days ago, movie star and musician Jack Black said that he planned to create a gaming channel on YouTube about the general culture of video games. No one was quite sure if he was being serious with this claim or trolling, but it turns out the answer is both.

The first episode, titled "A House with a Pin in it's [sic] Balls" covers, of course, pinball. Black heads to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas and takes a look, like literally a look, at a lot of classic and not-so-classic pinball tables. He also sings All-Star in front of a Shrek pinball table, so there's that.

A few days ago, movie star and musician Jack Black said that he planned to create a gaming channel on YouTube about the general culture of video games. No one was quite sure if he was being serious with this claim or trolling, but it turns out the answer is both.

The first episode, titled "A House with a Pin in it's [sic] Balls" covers, of course, pinball. Black heads to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas and takes a look, like literally a look, at a lot of classic and not-so-classic pinball tables. He also sings All-Star in front of a Shrek pinball table, so there's that.

The 19th annual Game Developers Choice awards, the show held during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, has announced their nominees for their upcoming awards show this year. Unlike the IGF Awards, which obviously focuses on indie games, the GDC Awards open up to games of all stripes and budgets. This year, the show is being hosted by Tim Schafer of Doublefine Games, who was last year's recipient of the lifetime achievement award.

The 19th annual Game Developers Choice awards, the show held during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, has announced their nominees for their upcoming awards show this year. Unlike the IGF Awards, which obviously focuses on indie games, the GDC Awards open up to games of all stripes and budgets. This year, the show is being hosted by Tim Schafer of Doublefine Games, who was last year's recipient of the lifetime achievement award.